Cascadian temblor – soon?

NASA released a rather interesting video of the last 15 years of recorded earthquake activity on the planet.

At the end of it you’ll see a set of stills. These are all quakes, 6.5 and greater and then 8.0 and greater. Here’s the last of these images:

Pretty startling that all around the “Ring of Fire” (sounds Tolkienian no?) that the west coast of North America is the one place where 8.0+ temblors have not occurred.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, the Pacific Northwest has not had a BigOne since January of 1700. The Juan de Fuca tectonic plate boundary and the Cascadian subduction zone are areas which “stick” for hundreds of years (300-600) and the release, quickly and dramatically. The quake in 1700 was not recorded as no Europeans either were there or survived. But the tsunami it produced was felt and recorded in Japan. It’s a fascinating story of how the geologists figured out the northwest was a location for earthquakes.

But suffice to say, every year, we’re getting closer and closer to the BigOne.